Carolyn Jay’s Post

Yesterday I attended a construction jobs fair at Camberley Job Centre. It was pretty quiet, and apart from meeting my old colleague Jack Hodgkins (thanks for taking the photo!), not a lot happened. I came away with one CV. Today one of my jobs is entering data into Ringway's new social value calculator. Attending a jobs fair doesn't score highly on the calculator, as the proxy monetary values are based on the impact your activity has on someone's life. Chatting at a job fair = low impact. Fair enough. But you only need to meet one person at a job fair to change their life = high impact. And you need to have strong relationships with JCP work coaches to get introduced to their best candidates. And JCP work coaches need local companies like Ringway to support these events regularly, otherwise they can't run them. This sort of activity - like school careers fair, again, not a high social value calculator score, but bread and butter for schools, and potentially life changing for young people - deliver a different kind of value into our work in local communities. It's like the glue that sticks the value bricks together. Signposts that take us down the right roads. So while I love being able to demonstrate the monetary value of the work I'm delivering for Surrey County Council and Surrey Highways, it's only one measure. And me sitting at a quiet desk in Camberley on a Monday morning is one other. #socialvaluematters #partnershipsthatwork #highwaysheroes